I have more compassion than if I had led a life where everything worked out exactly as I had planned or if I had never been wounded or if I had never been betrayed or I had never been harmed. I don't think I would be as good a person. Elizabeth Gilbert More Quotes by Elizabeth Gilbert More Quotes From Elizabeth Gilbert I'm still aspiring to be a better and better person, but I think that disappointments have made me gentler with other people and their disappointments, the stuff that they have to carry around and endure. Elizabeth Gilbert disappointment people thinking The world needs women who stop asking for permission from the principal. Permission to live their lives as they deeply know they often should. I think we still look to authority figures for validation, recognition, permission. Elizabeth Gilbert validation needs thinking If I'm being forgiving of myself, I could say I'm somebody who was really hungry for experiences. The same thing that would make me go try to be a trail cook on a ranch was the same thing that would make me want to have sex with a couple cowboys while I was there. Elizabeth Gilbert cowboy couple sex Modern marriage is first and foremost a romantic and private union, but the tax laws and inheritance laws and religious implications that still surround this institution indicate that marriage has evolved without casting away its earlier purposes or assumptions. It's like we just keep building on this thing, piling new advancements on the old model. Elizabeth Gilbert advancement religious law What I object to is the hyper-fetishized wedding day, the prioritizing of wedding over marriage. I have a real problem with couples spending far more time discussing the seating arrangement or the color of the bridesmaid's gowns than hashing out, for instance, their feelings about how they intend to handle questions of housework, child-rearing, finances and fidelity for the next four or five decades. Elizabeth Gilbert couple real children A man that can cook you a proper meal that is like a weekday meal - which I think cannot be better than in the form of a roast chicken - that's the greatest. Elizabeth Gilbert meals men thinking That's what we're all sort of trying to do in our lives - to make the simplest things work out the best. Elizabeth Gilbert work-out life-is trying I think that if you can roast a chicken, you can get whatever you want out of a woman. Maybe it's just me but I would suspect that a man trying to impress a woman would be more likely to bring out the steak - "I killed this for you, now I'm grilling it for you."... A man that can cook you a proper meal that is like a weekday meal - which I think cannot be better than in the form of a roast chicken - that's the greatest. Elizabeth Gilbert trying men thinking People will always want intimacy with one chosen person and you cannot have intimacy without privacy, which is why couples draw circles of privacy around themselves. They demand that family, neighbors and the law respect their union, and that is why we have marriage. Elizabeth Gilbert circles couple law Marriage is a strange combination of dream and reality, and we spend our lives as couples trying to negotiate that divide. Elizabeth Gilbert couple dream reality Marriage is not a game for the young. Elizabeth Gilbert games young Maturity brings - among other things - the ability to sustain and survive enormous contradictions and disappointments. Elizabeth Gilbert contradiction maturity disappointment Marriage is - among other things - a study in contradiction and disappointment, and inside that reality there is space for us to truly learn how to love. Elizabeth Gilbert space disappointment reality The fantasy of the wedding day is that it represents undeniable public and private truth that you have been chosen. For that one day, you are the most valuable creature in the world - a treasure, a princess, a prize. Elizabeth Gilbert wedding-day princess one-day All the parts of us that we ever were are always going to be with us. You make space to carry them and you just try not to let them drive. But you can't chuck them out either. Elizabeth Gilbert chuck space trying They say that there are three kinds of people in the world. There are people who never learn one way or another anything; there are people who learn from their own mistakes, eventually and with great pain; and then there are the really wise people who learn from other people's mistakes and spare themselves the suffering. Elizabeth Gilbert pain wise mistake The nineteenth century was the last moment in history when a relatively educated layperson could follow what was going on in the world of science and invention to a wide degree. Also, there were no "professionals". This was a time when amateur explorers, naturalists and enthusiasts were are still making major contributions to progress. Elizabeth Gilbert progress degrees world Up until the middle of the nineteenth century, men of science were all believers. Most of the great early English naturalists were also ministers; they were the only ones who had education and leisure for such pursuits. Darwin himself almost became a minister. God's power was always thought to be most easily and obviously revealed in the majestic works of nature. Elizabeth Gilbert leisure majestic men It is completely acceptable to be tired because it means you're working hard. But it's not acceptable to be stressed because that means things are going wrong or your head is broken. Elizabeth Gilbert tired broken mean Never go into debt to become a writer. Always find other ways to support yourself so you can do the work you truly love for the right reasons. Never ask your art to support you. If you ask your art to support you it will either end up comprised or you'll be disappointed with it. It's a lot to ask of creativity for it to provide for you financially. Find a scrappy way to get by and then do the work you love for the reasons you love. Elizabeth Gilbert support-you creativity art
